


the Bundt Cake and the Leminiscate

by Anonymous



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Polyamory Negotiations, everybody loves Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 07:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21472594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The only thing that could make the McIntyres and the Hunnicutts intersect is Hawkeye Pierce. And he didn't intend to, but it turns out they insist, by insisting on other things.
Relationships: "Trapper" John McIntyre/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt, B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Louise McIntyre/"Trapper" John McIntyre, Louise McIntyre/"Trapper" McIntyre/"Hawkeye" Pierce/B.J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16
Collections: Anonymous





	the Bundt Cake and the Leminiscate

B.J. brings back two things from the conference in Minnesota: a new kind of tube pan that says it's called "Bundt", complete with recipe card for two different cakes, and his best... well, his tentmate from Korea, Hawkeye Pierce. 

He tells Erin, "This is Uncle Hawkeye," and Benjamin Franklin Pierce crouches down on the ground, looking a little haunted and a little too thin, and talks solemnly with the Hunnicutts' little girl.

He tells Peg, "He said was wandering around the country, and I told him he looked like he could use a little sun. Well, at least a warmer place, I know we get a lot of fog."

There's already dessert (chocolate ice cream in the freezer) for dinner, and Peg can stretch meatloaf and potatoes and green beans (and peas, because Erin absolutely loves them and won't eat green beans) to four. It's not fancy, but it is good, and homecooked, and it won't remind him of Korea, because B.J. already said they never had anything half so good.

Things are still uneasy by the time Beej showers and puts on flannel pajama pants with a t-shirt and cardigan (what he wears around the house when he needs to change out of work clothes), and Peg puts a final coat of chili sauce (secret ingredient) on the meatloaf, setting the timer for ten more minutes. They shouldn't be uneasy, and the house smells like dinner already, but nobody's addressed what they're going to do about Hawkeye Pierce. Peg eyes him again, and pulls another loaf of bread (bakery thrift store, which she began doing in earnest when Beej was in Korea and money got tight) from the freezer--if he's really hungry, the half loaf already on the counter will help fill him up.

"Well, thank you," her husband's best friend says, and smiles winningly at her, through a tinge of sadness. He looks every bit as handsome as BJ said he was in letters, even with bits of grey in his hair, and that doesn't help Peg feel better about it.

She had thought before that they'd have to have a discussion about how they were going to approach things, if BJ brought Hawkeye home, but it hadn't spooled out that way, and here he was, and here they were, and she didn't know what would happen, or what was okay to say (did he have trouble with the sound of helicopters, like BJ sometimes?) or how far they could go, wherever they were headed.

* * *

It is 10 o'clock in Boston, two weeks after Hawkeye pulled out of their driveway empty-handed, and Trapper John has finally gathered up his courage, not to make the phone call (and he hasn't quite figured out who he'd be dialing yet), but to explain to Louise why he should.

The girls are in bed, and who ever it will be (unless he miraculously gets the number for the older Dr. Pierce, who is probably used to being called out of bed) will be further west. (are Bloomington and Indiana even a different time zone than Boston? He doesn't remember, but he doesn't want to call Frank, and then the recollection softly hits him that good old Colonel Blake is dead. _Fuck._)

So he can tell Louise something he doesn't even quite understand himself, something that might give her cause to divorce him, but damnit, even if it has to be what he thought it was, once (friendship unto brotherhood) instead of what it turned out it might have been--except that he was sent home before they could figure that out--he wants there to be something with Hawkeye. Trapper McIntyre wants Hawkeye Pierce in his life again, whether that reminds him constantly of Korea or not.

"Hawkeye..." he begins, only he doesn't want to say just that, and Louise stares at him with a tired and probably regretful expression. "Uh. Louise. We talked about--about nurses and stuff in Korea--"

She nods, and slips underneath the covers. They were... something like best friends, they weren't really a love story, but that was okay, and within the haze of reacclimatizing to the U.S of A, Trapper had realized, finally, that he kept falling a little bit in love with people everywhere, with oh so many women, but also men. Which was the difficulty, and he hadn't even quite realized it until...

He blurted "Hawkeye kissed me. One night, we were drunk. And then he went on leave and I couldn't figure out what to say to him and--and we hadn't seen each other again until he came by unexpectedly."

Louise looked extremely uncomfortable, which was pretty reasonable, given he's just suggested he did at least a little something homosexual. "You tried to write to his...father, that once."

"Yeah." It doesn't quite make sense to do it, but he brings his palm to his forehead, thinking about thinking Hawk was _dead_\--and actually he hadn't heard any different until Radar O'Reilly looked him up after the kid's plane home to Iowa was grounded and the ...Emerson-Winchesters (or whatever they were) insisted on putting him up for the weekend until the weather improved. 

But, so far as he could tell, from their tense and painful couple of hours reunited, Hawkeye's dad is fine, Trapper just had the Pierce home address really wrong somehow. Maybe it had been a prank, way back. He wasn't real good at letter writing, anyway. Couldn't put his feelings on paper like that, even if he could talk about it, or write the girls a little story. (Well, not about him loving Hawkeye, but most stuff was easier to get down when it wasn't a letter.)

"Uh, I still don't have the man's phone number or address. Louise, I don't want to ruin what we have, with the girls and everything, but yeah, I guess I'm a little bit queer _but_ I don't want to have to lose him as a friend, and I want to make sure he's alright--" he's going to wreck everything but please, god, let him get what he wants, this time.

She interrupts him, her voice breaking, "If we're confessing things--I told you I could live with it, when you were in Korea, but I felt like I already knew him, John, from what you used to say, all you've told us, and I threw him out because _I didn't want you to live through your wife falling in love with your best friend_, and I thought it was happening and I wasn't sure I could stop it."

Trapper blinks. "Oh." That was the last thing he would have expected. "He's...easy to fall in love with."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (chili sauce (as in the kind similar to ketchup and used in like, vintage party meatball/cocktail sausage recipes) actually is pretty good with meatloaf, incidentally!)

**Author's Note:**

> Five chapters is a reeeally rough estimate due to this having only the vaguest of planning. probably anywhere from 3-7 chapters is likely.


End file.
